Presently the old judge himself began to get excited; and
springing to his feet, ran in among the crowd, wagging his tongue as
hard as anybody.
The tumult lasted about twenty minutes; and toward the end of it,
Captain Crash might have been seen, tranquilly regarding, from his
Honour's platform, the judicial uproar, in which his fate was about
being decided.
The result of all this was that both he and the girl were found
guilty. The latter was adjudged to make six mats for the queen; and
the former, in consideration of his manifold offences, being deemed
incorrigible, was sentenced to eternal banishment from the island.
Both these decrees seemed to originate in the general hubbub. His
Honour, however, appeared to have considerable authority, and it was
quite plain that the decision received his approval.
The above penalties were by no means indiscriminately inflicted. The
missionaries have prepared a sort of penal tariff to facilitate
judicial proceedings. It costs so many days' labour on the Broom Road
to indulge in the pleasures of the calabash; so many fathoms of stone
wall to steal a musket; and so on to the end of the catalogue. The
judge being provided with a book in which all these matters are
cunningly arranged, the thing is vastly convenient. For instance: a
crime is proved, - say bigamy; turn to letter B - and there you have
it. Bigamy: - forty days on the Broom Road, and twenty mats for the
queen. Read the passage aloud, and sentence is pronounced.
After taking part in the first trial, the other delinquents present
were put upon their own; in which, also, the convicted culprits
seemed to have quite as much to say as the rest. A rather strange
proceeding; but strictly in accordance with the glorious English
principle, that every man should be tried by his peers. They were all
found guilty.
CHAPTER LXXX.
QUEEN POMAREE
IT is well to learn something about people before being introduced to
them, and so we will here give some account of Pomaree and her
family.
Every reader of Cook's Voyages must remember "Otto," who, in that
navigator's time, was king of the larger peninsula of Tahiti.
Subsequently, assisted by the muskets of the Bounty's men, he
extended his rule over the entire island. This Otto, before his
death, had his name changed into Pomaree, which has ever since been
the royal patronymic.
He was succeeded by his son, Pomaree II., the most famous prince in
the annals of Tahiti. Though a sad debauchee and drunkard, and even
charged with unnatural crimes, he was a great friend of the
missionaries, and one of their very first proselytes. During the
religious wars into which he was hurried by his zeal for the new
faith, he was defeated and expelled from the island.
